1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the art of stringed instrument instruction, and more particularly to visual guides for assisting in the positioning of fingers on a stringed instrument neck.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Stringed instruments, such as guitars, ukuleles, banjos, and similar instruments usually are comprised of an extended neck having a plurality of strings stretched tightly along the face, but slightly spaced from the neck. Different chords or notes are audibly created by strumming, glancing, or picking the strings with one hand, or a bow or like instrument, while fingers of the other hand depress certain of the strings against the neck. The neck frequently has frets positioned at spaced intervals along the longitudinal length of the neck. The frets comprise longitudinally transverse bars raised from the finger board surface so that when a string is depressed between two frets, the depressed string will contact the frets on either side of the point of depression, to change the harmonic vibration of the string and thus contribute to the audible chord.
Each chord will require the depression of a set of strings at various longitudinal positions along the string next to the neck. Anywhere from one to four such string depressions may be required to produce a chord. Learning to play such a stringed instrument requires fundamentally, therefore, a learning of which strings, and at what points along the length of the neck such depressions must be made in order to create the audible chord.
In the past, certain guides and assists have been taught to aid in this learning process. For example, in U.S. Letters Pat. No. 4,286,495 to Roof, an electrically powered lighting system having an individual light recessed within the neck under each string in each fret is described. A pre-programed switching circuit energizes a set of such lights to illuminate the string-fret combination to be depressed in order to generate the desired chord.
In U.S. Letters Pat. No. 2,225,613 to Alyn, the neck is specially designed so that it is transparent and has a slot or hollow space for receiving a specially encoded strip the code of which is seen through the neck. Similarly, U.S. Letters Pat. No. 3,153,970 to Mulchi describes an encoded flat card visually positioned between the the frets on the neck and the strings. The fingers are first positioned, and the card is then removed prior to play.
In U.S. Letters Pat. No. 4,331,059 to Marabotto mechanical enclosures for completely enclosing linear sections of the neck and the strings have been described where a plurality of depressible shapes are connected to a button or buttons on the outside of the enclosure. In order to depress one to four strings necessary to create an audible chord, one need only to depress a button or buttons on the outside of the enclosure to which button or buttons the shapes on the inside of the enclosure are mechanically linked. Alphabetical guides are given adjacent the outside, single buttons, further. Yet again, a plurality of varied and contrasting colored sets of printed numbers within a circle have been taught having adhesive provided on the back. A selection of several of the identically colored numbers in a set can be adhered to the neck of the stringed instrument between the neck and the strings at the longitudinal or linear points along the neck, and underneath the individual string where it must be depressed in order to create its share of the chordal note. See U.S. Letters Pat. No. 1,699,380 to Stewart. Such an arrangement, as may be appreciated, requires some initial knowledge or instruction of precisely which strings, and at what points along the linear length of the neck must be depressed, and then the precise positioning of the adhesively backed numbers must be made.
It has long been desired to provide simple, integral and single unit devices which assist in the identification of the strings and the linear points along the neck of the stringed instrument where depressions must be made in order to create audible chord sounds. It is further desired to have such a single, integral device which is easily removed and reinserted during the learning process so as to assist the student of the stringed instrument in remembering the chordal positions, yet is easily positioned on the stringed instrument with accuracy and firmness, while not preventing contact between the fret and the strings. It is desired yet further to provide a stringed instrument chord learning guide which is encoded such as with colors in order to assist those with special and limited learning capability who might respond to coding as opposed to alphanumeric communicative instructions. It has long been sought to provide such a chord learning device that does not require a specially constructed stringed instrument, but rather adapts to existing constructions of stringed instrumentation.